Estimation of stratum variances in planning of crop acreage surveys (Q1821476)

A modelling approach is used to obtain initial estimates of stratum crop acreage variances for designing crop surveys, particularly those using the remote sensing technology. The present methodology is developed based on the concept of stratum variance as a function of the sampling unit size and it uses primarily the historical crop statistics which are commonly available in most countries. Methods are proposed for the determination of stratum variances corresponding to unit sizes different from the sampling unit size and for which the historical crop statistics can be used. The methodology is applied to estimate stratum variances for wheat in the U.S. Great Plains. An evaluation of these estimates made by comparing them to those obtained from certain satellite sample data shows that the proposed method leads to reliable stratum variance estimates for a fairly large size (5\(\times 6\) nautical miles area segment) sampling unit.